Teaching English as a Foreign Language for Dummies (36 page)

Chapter 16

Feeling Tense? Sorting Out

Verb Tenses

In This Chapter

▶ Naming the tenses

▶ Getting comfortable in the past and present

▶ Being perfectly content with continuous and perfect tenses

▶ Focusing on the future

For most new teachers knowing the grammar is one of the most fear inspiring parts of the job. In this chapter you find out how to break down each tense, one by one, and you get ideas for teaching them in context.

With all tenses, you have to know what it looks like. It is never enough to say past tense, present tense or future tense. Actually the tenses are always labelled past/present/future and then simple/continuous/perfect/perfect continuous. In this chapter, we also find out what these terms mean and how we use verbs to put each tense together. Then we discover why and when we use each tense.

I Speak, I Spoke, I’ve Spoken:

Identifying the Tenses

Whereas the terms past, present and future are quite logical in meaning, tenses can be simple, continuous and perfect in the past, present and future as well. So you don’t refer to a sentence as just present tense but you say that it’s present simple, present continuous, or present perfect.

These tense forms aren’t so obvious to decipher, but these pointers can help you:

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✓

The
simple tenses
don’t use the auxiliary verbs ‘to be’ or ‘to have’ with the main verb. The continuous and perfect tenses use these auxiliary (or helping) verbs in their structure. For example, ‘I
drink
tea’ is in the present simple. ‘I drank tea’ is in the past simple tense and ‘I will drink’ is the future simple tense.

✓

The
continuous
tenses
always include ‘to be’ in one form or another (is, are was, were and so on – I go through ‘to be’ in Chapter 15) and another verb ending with ‘ing’ (called a
gerund
). So the sentence ‘I am eating now’ is in the present continuous tense. ‘I was eating’ is in the past continuous tense and ‘I will be eating’ is in the future continuous tense. In each case ‘to be’ and a
gerund
form part of
the structure of the tense
.

✓

The
perfect tenses
always include ‘to have’ in some way (has, have, had) and another verb that’s a past participle. So the sentence ‘I have eaten’ is the present perfect tense. ‘I had eaten’ is in the past perfect tense and ‘I will have eaten’ is the future perfect tense. In each case the structure of the tense contains ‘to have’
and a past participle.

There may seem to be an endless number of tenses to remember, but actually there are only twelve and you only need to teach them one at a time.

In Table 16-1 all the tense labels are set out using the first person ‘I’ and the verb ‘to eat’, which is an irregular verb, to make model sentences.

Table 16-1

Tense Names

Past

Present

Future

Simple

I ate

I eat

I will eat

Continuous

I was eating

I am eating

I will be eating

Perfect

I had eaten

I have eaten

I will have eaten

Perfect

I had been eating

I have been eating

I will have been eating

continuous

Although the table includes all the tenses, I cover other grammatical structures such as ‘conditionals’ in Chapter 17.

In Table 16-1, I use the subject pronoun
I
in each
sentence. Fortunately, in English the grammar changes very little when you use the other subject pronouns. This is much easier than in other languages so don’t be surprised if students seem to be overcomplicating the matter. They’re usually translating.

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1st person singular

1

2nd person singular and plural

you

3rd person singular

he/she/it

1st person plural

we

3rd person plural

they

The verb ‘to be’ changes the most according to the subject pronoun used and I list these different forms of the verb in Chapter 15. With other verbs, point out to your students that sentences referring to he/she/it in the present tenses change form. After he/she/it you add an ‘s’ or ‘es’ .

Present Simple

He/she/it

like
s
/go
es
/want
s

Present continuous

I am

looking/driving

You/we/they are looking/driving

He/she/it is looking/driving

The verb ‘to have’ is irregular. The third person singular form
in the present
simple tense
is
has. You use has for he/she/it
in the present perfect simple
and

continuous
too
.

Present Perfect

He /she/it

has gone/has sold

Present Perfect continuous

He/she/it

has been going/has been selling

Beginning with the Present Simple

You use the
present simple tense
to describe an action that happens generally or is generally true.

So it’s typical to teach the present simple in the context of hobbies, preferences and routines, along with adverbs of frequency such as: always, usually, often, sometimes, occasionally, rarely and never.

Students can pair up and ask each other questions about their daily lives: What do you usually do in the evening?

I often watch TV but I never go to the pub.

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The present simple really is as easy as it sounds. Unlike many languages, in English regular verbs don’t have to change much for each subject pronoun (I, you, he, she, it, we or they).

✓

1st person singular: I like

✓

2nd person singular/plural: You like

✓

3rd person singular: He/she/it like
s

✓

1st person plural: We like

✓

3rd person plural: They like

As soon as the students have learnt the verb ‘to like’ or any other regular verb, they’re ready to get started with the present simple, as long as they remember to use ‘s’ or ‘es’ at the end of the verb in the third person.

I list first, second and third person singular and plural so that you can identify which is which. However, the only one you commonly need to correct in TEFL

is third person singular because students often forget to use ‘s’ at the end of a verb in the present simple.

It’s unwise to bombard students with grammar jargon. Just use what’s necessary to explain the point. So referring to
he/she/it
is clearer than saying third person singular.

The tricky part for students is the negative and question forms where you use ‘do’, ‘does’ and ‘don’t’. In the negative, you put ‘do not’ and ‘does not’

before the main verb.

I, you, we, they don’t/do not like: What do I/you/we/they like?

He, she, it doesn’t/does not like: When does he/she like to drink beer?

We teach the verb ‘to be’ separately as it behaves in a different way in the positive, negative and question forms:

I am/’m (not) here.

You/we/they are/’re (not) here.

He/she/it is/’s (not) here.

Am I here?

Are you/we/they here?

Is she here?

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Staying Continuously in the Present

Whereas the present simple describes a general habit, the
present continuous
tense
describes an action that’s happening now, at this moment or around this time.

So, you can use the current scene in the classroom to practise. For example, you can have students list everything they’re wearing, do ‘spot the difference’ exercises – because pictures capture a moment in time – or compare first and second languages – ‘I speak German but I’m speaking English at the moment’.

In comparison with the present simple, the present continuous is structured with the verb ‘to be’ and a gerund, a fact that students tend to forget: I
am
singing
.

He/she/it
is singing.

You/we/they
are singing.

I didn’t use ‘to like’ as I did in the examples for the section on the present simple because some verbs don’t really describe an action but more of a state, and so can’t be expressed in a continuous tense. So we say ‘I understand that’

instead of ‘I’m understanding that’.

As you use ‘to be’ to make this tense, students should already know how to make questions and negatives based on the way we use this verb in the present simple. For example: Are you staying here? No, I’m not staying.

Even though this isn’t technically a future tense, you can use the present continuous for appointments in the future. This use of the present continuous suggests that a particular time has been decided on, rather than a vague intention:
I’m
seeing
the dentist at 3 p.m. However, you usually teach this at pre-intermediate level, not to beginners.

We can also express annoying habits in the present continuous: He’
s
always
leaving
his key behind. However, this lesson is generally for upper-intermediate students and above.

Going Back to the Past, Simply

The
past simple tense
is the tense you use with actions that are finished in the past. You often add words like ‘ago’ or ‘last’ (night, week, month, year) to show when the action happened.

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A typical context for this tense is a story about last weekend or your last holiday: Last summer, I
went
to Florida with my family. It
was
really hot and I
got
a good tan.

The past simple tense is quite easy with regular verbs. Students can easily remember to add ‘ed’ or ‘d’ to the end of a verb.

Don’t get too comfortable though! The ‘ed’ ending can be pronounced in different ways. Just compare these three verbs – look
ed
, play
ed
and wait
ed
–
and notice that you pronounce the ‘ed’ as t/, /d/ and /id/respectively, although the spelling is the same.

There’s also an array of irregular verbs that students just have to learn by heart. Course books or learners’ dictionaries usually include a table of verbs at the back of the book and these tables list the past simple in the second column. Verbs such as ‘to drink’ and ‘to understand’ are irregular because they change drastically. Instead of adding ‘. . . ed’, you change them to
drank
and
understood
respectively.

Remembering a Moment in the Past

With the
past continuous tense
you can speak about a particular moment in the past.

All continuous tenses include the verb ‘to be’ and a gerund (a verb that ends with
ing
). In this case the verb ‘to be’ is in the past (was or were).

I/he/she/it
was singing.

You/we/they
were singing.

In the negative form you add
not
or
n’t
(wasn’t and weren’t) and for question forms you put
was
and
were
before the subject pronoun (words like I, you, and they). For example:
Were
they
singing? No they
weren’t
singing.

If a detective wanted to interview someone about a theft that happened the night before, she may ask, ‘What
were
you
doing
at 8.30 p.m. last night?’

Whodunnit games are a great way to practise this tense as students can come up with alibis in the past continuous.

Or perhaps two actions happened in the past but one action interrupted the other one. For example: ‘At 8.30 p.m. I started making dinner. At 8.35 p.m.

my neighbour came round’. The typical way to express that is by combining past continuous, often with ‘while’ and ‘when’, and past simple: While I
was
making
dinner, my neighbour
came
round.

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There may be two actions happening simultaneously too, with each lasting for a reasonable period of time. In this context, use the past continuous twice: While I
was making
dinner, my husband
was watching
TV.

Use pictures with a lot of people and actions to present and practise sentences like these.

Presenting the Present Perfect Simple

The
present perfect tense
is the tense you use to make a connection between the past and present.

Every perfect tense contains part of the verb ‘to have’ and a past participle (the third column of most verb tables).

So for this tense we use ‘have’ or ‘has’ as follows:

I/you/we/they
have begun
(or
’ve
begun
) He/she/it
has begun
(or
’s
begun
) In the negative form we include
not
(or
n’t
) and in the question form we put
have/has
before the subject pronoun (words like I, you and they).

Why
have you begun
the game? Actually, we
haven’t begun
yet.